Ms Justina Corcoran:

At the moment, it is the supplier who people need to speak to. There is another issue around the data that is collected through smart metering. It is only collected for a specific purpose. The only person who has access to that data at the moment is an individual customer. That data cannot be shared. Data access code legislation needs to be put in place in order to make that data more available. Once suppliers have better access to that data, they will be able to profile that and have a conversation with the customer about their usage and the best tariff based on their current usage. If they would like to save money, change their behaviour and shift their usage to a different pattern, they could be informed that another tariff would be best.

There is an issue at the moment around the sharing of that data. The plan is that there will be legislation in place. The CRU has done a lot of work on that. We are now examining what kind of primary legislation needs to be put in place. A piece of work will be done this year around smart data access codes. That will at least make more information available to inform people and enable them to make better decisions. A lot of activity is happening in the whole area of access to smart data and time-of-use tariffs. It will be the end of this year before people see tangible benefits.